The prior art discloses many permutations of automobile passive seat belt arrangements that basically comprise either a two-point or three-point system. The conventional two-point system has only a shoulder harness or torso belt, and the three-point system, a lap belt as well as the torso belt for restraining a seat occupant in a vehicle seating position. In nearly all of the disclosed passive seat belt arrangements, the seat occupant restraining position of the belt or belts is controlled by or related to the position of the vehicle door. That is, when the door is moved from an opened to a closed position, the belt or belts automatically embrace or encircle the seat occupant. When the door is moved from a closed to an opened position, the belt or belts are displaced from the seating position to facilitate egress or ingress from the vehicle passenger compartment. The term "passive", as used in the expression "passive seat belt system", thus means that the seat occupant is not required to do anything but close the car door to become belted in the seat or to open the door to become unbelted.
One objection to passive seat belt systems is the difficulty of raising and holding the belt or belts high enough off the seating position to maximize the ingress/egress clearance therebeneath. Preferably, at least the torso belt should be held substantially parallel to the roof rail from its point of attachment to the latter rearwardly of the occupant seating position to the point at which the roof rail is connected to the downwardly extending vehicle windshield piller framing the upper forward portion of the door opening. Reference may be made to U.S. Pat. No. 3,985,193 issued Oct. 12, 1976 to W. Akiyama et al for "Vehicle Semi-Passive Occupant Restraining Belt Arrangment" in which the torso belt can be held in the desired attitude along the roof rail, but must be manually positioned on a fixed hanger hook at the junction of the roof rail and the windshield pillar before the door is opened. The hook automatically releases the belt upon the door being closed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a belt positioning system in which the torso belt is automatically picked up and held parallel to the roof rail as the door is opened and is automatically released to assume torso engirdling position as the door is closed.